by JCH Rigby
“However, you Corporal Arden, you have been incorporated into the newest and most prestigious program in the history of the world’s elite forces.” Coming from a little fat guy who looked like he would collapse in a heap the second he put on a combat load, this statement lost a bit of its impact. “Men and women like you are the cream of the military forces of many worlds and states, the skills you possess, married to the improvements we will make to your physical capabilities, will make you an unstoppable force for peace and security. You are joining the top-rated military organization in the entire Solar System, and the Out Systems as well.”
By now I’m starting to feel like I ought to be saluting something. Anstruther stirs restlessly in his chair; the nurse lurking in the background looks as though he’s not sure if he should be here at all. “The Human Enhancement Program is expanding from its successful beginnings, and your contribution to it will allow it to influence military actions beyond all proportion to its numbers. This is the birth of a remarkable military unit, and I congratulate you for your part in its creation.” He finishes on a high note, his cheeks glowing.
Anstruther looks at him sardonically, shaking his head fractionally before consulting his slate. I’d love to know what it’s telling him.
“You’ve made a lot of progress since we completed the first set of operations and modifications, Steve.” It seems as if Anstruther’s using my first name to piss Simpson off. “You’re showing good signs of stability with the Enhancements, and Colonel Simpson and I are agreed it’s time to show you what you look like at last. I know it’s been frustrating for you, being kept in ignorance this long, but we needed to be certain you were coping well before taking the next big step.
“I want you to try to relax about this, Steve. We’ve done a lot of work on you, but I’m sure you’ll recognize yourself underneath it all. Remember, if you want us to, we can reverse the whole thing and there’s no harm done.” Bull. Where did you put my eyes?
I’ve cranked my hearing up a little, and I hear a slight tremor in his voice. Studying Anstruther and Simpson in infrared, there’s tension in the rising heat of their faces. Simpson briefly brushes his hand over his lips, and Anstruther won’t meet my eyes. They’re lying. I must be very, very careful.
“Nurse?” At Anstruther’s words, the man brings up a mirror and hands it to me. Prior to observing my visitors tension signs I’d been planning to grandstand it a little, maybe look in the mirror and shrug casually. Not now. I make a show of steeling myself, and look down very deliberately. I catch my breath and study myself for several minutes, turning the mirror this way and that before putting it down and looking steadily at them both.
“Well, I’m certainly impressed, Doctor.” I say, my voice level and unemotional. “I’m not put off by it; it’s something along the lines I’d expected. I’ve met some of the Enhanced already, remember? So, what’s next?”
What a load of bullshit.
PART III
DAVID CHAMBERS
Orchard 2450
“They should not think themselves more truthful because they are more quarrelsome.” –Charles Moore, 2008.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A Validation
Once he studied the Richter avatar’s data, David Chambers weighed his options. His police interrogator, Blank Face, had warned him to stay away from politics, and to keep away from his old contacts. The avatar of Leon Richter told him to get to work saving humanity, and to find his missing comrades. Neither of these objectives seemed compatible.
So, what was that rule of journalism? If you're not pissing anyone off, you're doing something wrong.
Let’s start by calling a few people. That’s bound to piss off somebody.
IT TOOK CHAMBERS FOUR hours of avoided calls, unanswered messages, obstructive phone agents, evasive receptionists, and nervous sub-editors before he finally got the point. No one wanted to talk. That wasn’t quite right. Most people were happy to talk—
“David, hi! I was so pleased to hear you’re back. It’s been how long? I’ll call you.”
“You’re looking well! Let’s do lunch soon. Coupla days.”
“Great to see you. Keeping up with the rugby? There’s a few brilliant games coming up. Sorry, gotta go. I’m needed.”— but, nobody wanted to listen. He evidently wasn’t the only person to have received a none too subtle warning by unnamed men. It appeared his name was poison.
And that wasn’t very Orchard. Back when Chambers had been a member of the hab’s press corps, Orchard’s news folks had been an unruly bunch. They didn’t like being told what to do. If anyone instructed them to keep clear of a story, there would have been a rush to be the first journo on it.
Now though, with a foreign war ready to engulf Orchard, a colleague threatened, extra-judicial abduction: the press should have been swarming all over it. Chambers wasn’t fooling himself; somebody, anybody should have been curious enough to invest a few minutes in him and listen to what he had to say. Things had clearly changed.
Chambers saw it as a success, or at least a validation. He was pissing somebody off.
THE RICHTER AVATAR MATERIALIZED at Chambers’ shoulder. When his heart stopped thumping, Chambers glared at it.
“Can’t you try knocking, or something?”
“So, what have you learned about Steve Arden?” Richter clearly didn’t care to chat.
“I’ve learned he’s bloody old! The images I’ve seen so far go back 200 years, back before the Chinese Wars, and, I’ve learned nobody wants to talk to me. All my old press contacts are happy to make polite small talk but when I try to change the subject they make some excuse and hang up. Somebody has them frightened.”
Richter wasn’t overly impressed. “So, why don’t you publish it yourself, right now? Come on, man. What are you waiting for?”
Chambers gave an exasperated sigh. “You haven’t thought it through. Sure, I could get the story out, but only here on Orchard. ARTOK are the problem. When I left here, ARTOK were all over the place, but we still had a fairly independent government. Now, I reckon ARTOK practically rules this habitat. If I publish, the story will be suppressed damn quick. Then I’ll be the next one to disappear, and the story will die with me, because how are you going to get it out there?”
The Richter avatar remained silent not having an answer to Chambers’ question. For his part Chambers sat contemplating the view out of the window considering his next move. “I’ve got to find a way of spreading the word back to Earth, and to all the other worlds, before I draw more attention to myself. The only way off this hab is on an ARTOK ship. I need to solve that riddle first.
“While I’m thinking about that, tell me: how does a German special forces soldier end up working for an Anglo-Russian company? If you wanted to work in a corporate military force, why not NipponDeutsch? Since ARTOK and NipponDeutsch hate each other so much, wouldn’t that have been the obvious choice? And did it ever explode into to actual warfare before?”
Richter’s avatar face creased in confused anguish. “I keep telling you, I still don’t remember how all of this happened to me. How I became enhanced in the first place. I know my memory has been tampered with; there are whole chunks missing. I’m recalling a little more, every day.
“I think I’m starting to put it back together.”
PART IV
LEON RICHTER
2310
“A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.” –Oscar Wilde
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ejecta Waste
April
Leon Richter was in Bavaria, climbing alone. Free-soloing, pulling himself up an awkward overhang, wedging one taped hand at a time into cracks millimeters wider than his straining fingers. A drop of 150 meters or so below him, frangible rock under his hands and bare centimeters in front of his face. The noon sun hot on his half-bare shoulders and back. Pausing to think about his next move, he watched as a drop of sweat trickled from hi
s armpit and across his chest. You were never the right way up, doing this.
Richter couldn’t have been happier. This was what he lived for, the moments when all the crap went away, when no matter how tough or popular or senior or rich or smart you were, what mattered was how good you were. You couldn’t bullshit gravity. Here, you needed to be utterly at one with your purpose. This wasn’t a hobby. This was Zen.
Alone and unaided but for his chalk bag and sticky shoes, Richter concentrated fiercely on how to reach the next hold without having to intertwine his arms. His own weight starting to drag on him heavily now, the drop sucking at his back. If he hung around here too long he’d never move again, except downwards, very fast. He had to move, and that hold looked do-able, tantalizingly beyond reach he’d need to leap, and the longer he stayed here the weaker he’d be, so here goes.
Pushing off hard with his right leg and hand, left arm stretched out like a javelin, muscle and sinew stretching for the hold. A moment of flight, which could only be half a second but always felt like it lasted for a whole minute, and even weirder, the moment felt bigger than now to him for days or weeks afterwards—
—he caught the rock again and the hold was a good one, his feet finding the purchase they needed, right hand finding a hold on the sheer rock face as well. Ah, well. Back to reliable, boring, and predictable solidity, after a momentary glimpse of uncertain ecstasy.
Sure, he could cheat and use the brilliant nano-boots issued to him when he’d joined Mountain Troop. He loved them. Those fantastic toys with tiny little tendrils embedded in their soles, tendrils which could be made to squirm their way into the most minute irregularities in whatever surface they touched, and then hold with an unbreakable grip. His leg bones would give way sooner than those things would lose their grasp. The tiniest flexing of his toes caused them to loosen again and, once you knew how, you could walk across the ceiling in them. They came with a matching set of spidey-gloves, too. The whole ensemble cost like crazy, naturally, so it shrieked military tech to anyone who set eyes on it. Terrific fun, of course, but not really climbing, and certainly not free climbing. So, they remained in his kitbag down in the little inn he was staying at in the picturesque town of Oberleiten.
This morning he’d cadged a lift from a passing truck which had taken him most of the way to the bottom of the mountain, the summit of which was his goal today. From the road he’d hiked the rest of the way. Now he hung a few hundred meters above the town’s rooftops which glowed red in the sun. Clinging to the rock face Richter considered his options, he was a few hours away from a shower, a wholesome meal, and a few beers. He’d long since missed zweites frühstück, second breakfast, something he always enjoyed whilst visiting Bavaria. By now he’d missed lunch as well, so he’d be lucky if he got anything before late afternoon. He’d seen schweinsbraten on the inn’s menu, though; and he loved roast pork, so he’d eat well when he finally got to it. Meanwhile there was some crushed weisswurst in the little pouch on his belt, that would have to do for now.
Looking upwards he gauged the distance to his next rest stop. Another few minutes climbing and he’d be able to scramble over the lip of the overhang and onto the ledge. He started to reach out—a voice came from the empty air over the void behind him. “I am a… oh, I see. I’ll wait a moment while you sort yourself out.”
Scheisse. Richter’s fingers missed the crack he’d been reaching for too late for him to stop the momentum his body had generated reaching for it. Panic caught him as he scrambled for another hold, anything to prevent him plummeting onto the rocks below. A finger nail ripped loose as he dug his fingers into the slimmest of cracks, arm muscles strained as they arrested his potentially fatal fall. Breathing heavily Richter hugged the mountainside, eyes closed as he thanked the climbing gods for sparing him. He stayed that way for what felt like an eternity before finally pulling himself up and sprawling onto the narrow outcrop. He should have left the blasted handy-phone behind, but on-call was on-call. He took a deep breath pulling a piece of tape from his pouch to bind the still bleeding finger, all the while trying to control the wave of anger building inside him. “Go on, then.”
The voice returned, now sounding a little testy. “I am a message agent, and I formally declare I am the approved sub-personality of Hauptmann Tomas Walter. You are Leon Richter. If this is not the case, say so now.” The message agent paused for a five count before resuming. “No? Well, then. Leon Richter, your inalienable civilian rights under the constitution of the European Federation entitle you to reject this message and its accompanying personality.”
The words blurred together. The voice gabbling at an artificial rate, running through a boring legal necessity as quickly as possible. “As you are subject to military law, asserting those rights regarding a message from your duly authorized superior officer constitutes immediate resignation from service. Be aware such resignation further constitutes illegal withdrawal of labor and will render you subject to disciplinary process prior to discharge.”
The message agents voice slowed to a more normal pace. “Now we’ve got that out of the way, may I proceed?”
Richter drew a deep breath. “Go ahead, sir.”
“Thank you.” A figure appeared in the air beside him, the avatar of a familiar man in the uniform of Richter’s special forces regiment. He wore captain’s insignia. The bloody adjutant.
The adjutant looked at the rock face, at the mountains, and at the buildings far below before settling his gaze on Richter again. “Hmm. Interesting. Not sure I’d have done it that way myself, but, well. Here we are.”
Thoroughly annoyed, Richter didn’t get up. The adjutant’s avatar glanced around itself once more, shrugged, and drifted slowly downwards until it appeared to rest lightly on the surface of the outcrop. “I’m sorry to interrupt your leave, but you’re being recalled with immediate effect. You are to return to headquarters forthwith and prepare for off-planet duty. You will be away from Earth for at least six standard months, and will not be permitted to discuss the detached duty with anyone, now or in the future.
“Given the extraordinary nature of this duty, you have a one-time offer of rejecting it without demerit. This offer expires in sixty seconds.”
Richter stared at the adjutant’s avatar in confusion. “What? I can—hang on, sir, say that again.”
“Fifty-three seconds.”
Shit. How sodding army. Six months away in God knows where, doing God knows what, and he had to decide while halfway up a rock face in the Chiemgau, thirty seconds after the only thing on his mind had been missing second breakfast and not falling to his death. Without demerit? Bullshit. They’d hold it against you for sure. Shit, shit, shit. Richter stared straight up at the clear blue sky for a moment, before returning his attention to the adjutant’s avatar, which was happily whistling through its virtual teeth and trying to kick at a protruding stub of outcrop.
“Ferrosilicides from the strewnfield, d’you think?” Mused the adjutant. “We’re in the Chiemgau, aren’t we? Looks like ejecta waste to me. Big meteorite impact here round about 500 BC. You know one of the ferrosilicides is called ferrorichterite? But I gather you won’t find it around here. Shouldn’t find you around here soon, either. Made your mind up yet?”
God, the adjutant was evidently an amateur geologist as well as a professional pest. Decision. “Yes, sir; I’m up for it. What do I have to do?” It felt like that half second in mid-air again.
“Good man, Richter.” And, a patronizing ass. “Right, wait a moment. I need to check on something with my principal, Hauptmann Walter.” The adjutant’s avatar half- turned away from him, freezing the image. As the image pixelated and became transparent, Richter had a brief impression of other voices in a forceful discussion, then silence fell.
He lay back in the sunshine, wondering what the hell he’d got himself into. Six months away? And off Earth. Oh, no. Spacecraft. God, he’d be puking for weeks, and that was the end of his holiday. No chance of me
eting the other guys from his unit for the two days of biking they’d planned, and just when Maria, the inn’s maid, had been looking like a hot prospect too, shit! A bird landed on the ledge, glared at him madly, and abruptly flew away.
The adjutant’s avatar solidified once more, stuttered and spoke. “I’ve - I’ve - I’ve - I’ve just told myself we can reach you in two and a half hours. All your stuff with you, down there?” Richter nodded, idly wondering how capable Walter’s sub-personality was. Could it see that level of detail?
Apparently, it could. “Right, fine. I’ve copied a grid reference into your handy-phone’s maps. Be there at 1400 for a pick-up. It’s a field outside the town, and you’ll be collected by a flitter. Your bill’s been paid at the inn, your kit will be waiting in the flitter, your family has been informed, messages have been sent to your friends about the bike trip, and how do we solve a problem like Maria?” The avatar smiled at some private joke.
God, they’d kept a close eye on him. “Don’t worry about it, thanks, sir. I’ll drop her a line later tonight.”
The adjutant avatar regarded him sternly. “No, you won’t. You’ll be off-Earth by tonight. You’re out of communication with everyone from now on—I’ve disabled your handy-phone’s voice and messaging systems. Everything through me, or not at all until six months from now.”
Bastards. “Okay, sir, tell her I’ve had to go away, and I’m sorry, I’ll try and hook up when I get back. Now, since I can’t talk to anyone, what’s all this about?” He knew he was pushing his luck but if they were going to cut him off from the outside world he wanted something back.